So one afternoon in June, 1901, she came to his little dwelling with its large studio, and asked to have a long talk to him, whilst his parlour-maid--he was still a bachelor--denied him to other callers. They had tea together and Vivie plunged as quickly as possible into her problem. "You know, Praddy dear, I want to be a Barrister. But as a female they will never call me to the Bar. So I'm going to send Vivien Warren off for a long absence abroad--the few who think about me will probably conclude that money has carried the day and that I've gone to help my mother in her business--and in her absence Mr. Vavasour Williams will take up the running. David V. Williams--don't interrupt me--will study for the Bar, eat through his terms--six dinners a year, isn't it?--pass his examinations, and be called to the English Bar in about three years from now. Didn't you once have a pupil called Vavasour Williams?" _Praed_: "What, David, the Welsh boy? Yes. His name reminded me of your mother in one of her stages. David Vavasour Williams. I took him on in--let me see? I think it was in 1895 or early 1896. But how did you hear about him?" _Vivie_: "Never mind, or never mind for the moment. Tell me some more about him." _Praed_: "Well to sum him up briefly he was what school boys and subalterns would call 'a rotter.' Not without an almost mordid cleverness; but the Welsh strain in him which in the father turned to emotional religion--the father was Vicar or Rector of Pontystrad--came out in the boy in unhealthy fancies. He had almost the talent of Aubrey Beardsley. But I didn't think he had a good influence over my other pupils, so before I planned that Italian journey--on which you refused to accompany me--I advised him to leave my tuition--I wasn't modern enough, I said. I also advised him to make up his mind whether he wanted to be a sane architect--he despised questions of housemaids' closets and sanitation and lifts and hot-water supply--or a scene painter. I think he might have had a great career at Drury Lane over fairy palaces or millionaire dwellings. But I turned him out of my studio, though I put the fact less brutally before his father--said I should be absent a long while in Italy and that I feared the boy was too undisciplined. Afterwards I think he went into some South African police force..." _Vivie_: "He did, and died last year in a South African hospital. Had he--er--er--many relations, I mean did he come of well-known people?" _Praed_: "I fancy not. His father was just a dreamy old Welsh clergyman always seeing visions and believing himself a descendant of the Druids, Sam Gardner told me; and his mother had either died long ago or had run away from her husband, I forget which. In a way, I'm sorry David's dead. He had a sort of weird talent and wild good looks. By the way, he wasn't altogether unlike _you_."